Tootech writes: Intel threatened legal action Friday against anybody who uses its proprietary crypto key — leaked on the internet — to produce hardware that defeats the so-called HDCP technology that limits home recording of digital television and Blu-ray.

“There are laws to protect both the intellectual property involved as well as the content that is created and owned by the content providers,” said Tom Waldrop, a spokesman for the company, which developed HDCP. “Should a circumvention device be created using this information, we and others would avail ourselves, as appropriate, of those remedies.”

Intel’s comments came as it confirmed that the internet leak of the “master key” to the High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection system was authentic.

HDCP is a copy-protection technology that encrypts high-definition video traveling from Blu-ray players or set-top boxes to television monitors. The technology was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in 2004, and is a standard feature in televisions, cable boxes, satellite receivers and Blu-ray players in much of the modern world.

They obviously didn't copyright it, nor trademark it, nor patent it, because in doing so they would have to make it public....Would DMCA apply? as we are not bypassing copy protection, we have a correct key, and are using it....?